- Isuwa
Isuwa (transcribed Išuwa and sometimes rendered Ishuwa) was the ancient Hittite name for one of its neighboring
Anatolia n kingdoms to the east, in an area which later became theLuwian Neo-Hittite state ofKammanu .The land
The land of Isuwa was situated in the upper
Euphrates river region. The river valley was here surrounded by theAnti-Taurus Mountains . To the northeast of the river laid a vast plain stretched up to theBlack Sea mountain range.The plain had favourable climatic conditions due to the abundance of water from springs and rainfall. Irrigation of fields was possible without the need to build complex canals. The river valley was well suited for intensive agriculture, while livestock could be kept at the higher altitudes. The mountains possessed rich deposits of copper which were mined in antiquity.
The people
The Isuwans left no written record of their own, and it is not clear which of the Anatolian peoples inhabited the land of Isuwa prior to the Luwians. They could have been Indo-Europeans like the Luwians, related to the Hittites to the west,
Hattians ,Hurrians from the south, orUrartians who lived east of Isuwa in the first millennium BC.History of Isuwa
The area was one of the places were agriculture developed very early in the
Neolithic period. Urban centres emerged in the upperEuphrates river valley around 3000 BC. The first states may have followed in the third millennium BC. The name Isuwa is not known until the literate Hittite period of the second millennium BC. Few literate sources from within Isuwa have been discovered and the primary source material comes from Hittite texts.The Hittite period
To the west of Isuwa laid the hostile kingdom of the
Hittites . The Hittite kingHattusili I (c.1600 BC) is reported to have marched his army across theEuphrates river and destroyed the cities there. This corresponds with burnt destruction layers discovered by archaeologists at town sites in Isuwa at roughly this date.The Hittite king
Suppiluliuma I records how in the time his father,Tudhaliya II (c.1400 BC), the land of Isuwa became hostile. The enmity was probably aggravated by theHurrian kingdom ofMitanni to the south. Mitanni tried to form a alliance against the Hittites. According to a fragmentary Hittite letter, the king of Mitanni,Shaushtatar , seems to have waged war against the Hittite kingArnuwanda I with support from Isuwa. These hostilities lasted into Suppiluliuma's own reign when ca. 1350 BC he crossed the Euphrates and entered the land of Isuwa with his troops. He claims to have made Isuwa his subject.Isuwa continued to be ruled by kings who were vassals of the Hittites. Few kings of Isuwa are known by names and documents. One
Ehli-sharruma is mentioned as being king of Isuwa in a Hittite letter from the thirteenth century BC. Another king of Isuwa calledAri-sharruma is mentioned on a clay seal found atKorucutepe , an important site in Isuwa.Neo-Hittite period
After the fall of the Hittite empire in the early twelfth century BC a new state emerged in Isuwa. The city of
Melid became the center of aLuwian state,Kammanu , one of the so calledNeo-Hittite states. With the demise of the Hittites thePhrygians settled to the west, and to the east the kingdom ofUrartu was founded. The most powerful neighbour wasAssyria to the south. The encounter with the Assyrian king ofTiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) resulted in Kammanu being forced to pay tribute to Assyria. Kammanu continued to prosper however until the Assyrian kingSargon II (722-705 BC) sacked the city in 712 BC. At the same time theCimmerians andScythians invadedAnatolia from theCaucausus to the northeast. The movement of these nomadic people may have weakened Kammanu before the final Assyrian invasion, which probably caused the decline of settlements and culture in this area from the seventh century BC until the Roman period.Archaeology of Isuwa
The ancient land of Isuwa has today virtually disappeared beneath the water from several dams in the
Euphrates river. The TurkishSoutheastern Anatolia Project which started in the 1960s resulted in the Keban, Karakaya andAtatürk Dam which entirely flooded the river valley when completed in the 1970s. A fourth dam, Bireçik, was completed further south in 2000 and flooded the remainder of the Euphrates river valley inTurkey .Excavations
A great salvage campaign was undertaken in the upper Euphrates river valley at instigation of the president of the dam project Kemal Kurdaş. A Turkish, US and Dutch team of archaeologists headed by Maurits van Loon began the survey. Work then continued downstream where the
Atatürk Dam was being constructed.The excavations revealed settlements from the
Paleolithic down into the Middle Ages. The sites of Ikizepe, Korucutepe, Norşuntepe and Pulur around the Murat (Arsanias) river, a tributary of the Euphrates to the east, revealed largeBronze Age settlements from the fourth to the second millennium BC. The center of the kingdom Isuwa may have laid in this region which would equate well with the Hittite statements of crossing the Euphrates in reaching the kingdom.The important site of Arslantepe near the modern city of
Malatya luckily laid safe from the rising water. Today an Italian team of archaeologists led by Marcella Frangipane are working at the site and studying the surrounding area. The site of Arslantepe was settled from the fifth millennium BC until the Roman period. It was the capital of the Neo-Hittite kingdom ofMalatya .Culture
The earliest settlements in Isuwa show culturual contacts with
Tell Brak to the south, though not being the same culture. Agriculture began early due to favorable climatic conditions. Isuwa was at the outer fringe of the early MesopotamianUruk period culture. The people of Isuwa were also skilled in metallurgy and they reached theBronze Age in the fourth millennium BC. Copper were first mixed with arsenic, later with tin. The Early Bronze Age culture were linked withCaucasus in the northeast. In the Hittite period the culture of Isuwa show great parallels to the Central Anatolian and theHurrian culture to the south. The monumental architecture was of Hittite influence. The Neo-Hittite state show influences both from thePhrygia ,Assyria and the eastern kingdom ofUrartu . After theScythian people movement there appear some Scythian burials in the area.See also
*
Assyria
*History of the Hittites
*Hurrians
*Indo-European languages
*Mitanni
*Mesopotamia
*Phrygians
*Hayasa-Azzi Bibliography
*Conti, Persiani : "Between the Rivers and over the Mountains", La Sapienza Rome 1993.
*Erder, Cevat: "Lessons in Archaeological and Monument Salvage: The Keban Experience", Princeton university 1973.
*Konyar, Erkan: "Old Hittite presence in the East of the Euphrates in the light of stratigraphical data from Imikuşağı (Elazığ)," lecture held at Hethiter-workshop Istanbul 2004.
*Loon, Maurits van: "Korucutepe : final report on the excavations of the universities of Chicago, California (Los Angeles) and Amsterdam in the Keban reservoir", American Elsevier New York 1975-80 (3 vol.).External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/farfarer2001/hittite_letters/suppiluliuma_shattiwaza_treaty.htm] Suppiluliuma-Shattwaza treaty about Isuwa.
* [http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/wwwmuze/keban.html] METU Keban and the Lower Euphrates Project.
* [http://w3.uniroma1.it/arslantepe/homepage.htm] La Sapienza University of Rome excavations at Arslantepe / Malatya.
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